Kodak ESP-3 Easyshare All In One Printer (1629054) Review

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(More customer reviews)I previously owned a HP500 all in one printer before choosing the Kodak Easyshare ESP3. One reason was because the ink was too expensive and the Kodak seemed like a bargain because of the cheaper ink it offered. The black cartridge will run you $[...] and the color $[...]. I was paying around $[...] prior on ink. Making the total cost for the printer and ink around $165.00. BUT WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU is that this printer will only print those superior pictures on Kodak paper. It has a built in scanner that scans the back of the photo paper and automatically sets the image quality. The photo paper will run you around $9.00 bucks for regular glossy (4x6 @ 100 sheets)or the premium quality runs around the same price but you only get 60 4x6 sheets. (premium is better as it is heavier paper and doesn't fold as badly as the regular ones) Forget about using cheaper or other brands of photo paper, Kodak makes it so that they come out horrible. NOT ONLY is that a way to corner the market and make up for the cheap cost of the ink, one very very bad con is that you can forget about using regular non-photo paper. For black and white documents it's acceptable but color pictures are horrible on regular paper. Again Kodak offers something called ULTIMATE PAPER that makes the color quality acceptable. I tried using three different types of paper and only the Kodak paper was acceptable and not really good crisp bright color quality. My HP 500 was way better. This printer works as if it's already built in to work on it's own accessories and nothing else. This printer does not let you control the quality at all. It's set to AUTO PAPER even though i'm using an ultra bright white non kodak brand it will not let you adjust the type of paper you are using. So if you think that this printer is a simple easier way to go...think twice about it. For me since I like to print color copies on non-photo paper way more than print pictures I pretty much hate it because i'm limited on only using the Kodak Photo paper which is more expensive than other brands. The machine IS loud and when the paper comes out is bends, curls, or folds because the ink dries slowly on the regular paper. So expect to pay alot more for the accessories that does not come with this product because it pretty much rules out trying to use cheaper other brands. A side note: I also hate the paper tray because it's all black and makes it hard to load and the flap that holds it in place is very flimsy as if it's going to break off.
UPDATE:
Since my initial post it's unanimous: THIS IS THE WORST PRINTER EVER. I'm going to take it out in the yard and destroy it with a mallot and put it on youtube. Since I last wrote this review (I've had more time to play with it) I've had to call customer service and get new printer heads...TWICE. I just got my second printer head today and because it went out it drained the newly bought ink while I was doing their diagnostics. So now they tell me they'll have to send new ink for it tomorrow even though I had told them that it looked like it had drained the ink they said it would go back to normal. The problem was that the printer head could not detect the ink levels. I've been out of a printer for two weeks because of this. Now another day. Also when you can get customer service everytime I called I got someone from another country and you couldn't understand what they were saying half the time. It got so bad I asked them if they could tell me if there is a Kodak model other than this one that no one had many complaints on, they couldn't give me one. Also to reply to the man who said he didn't understand why I would do this and do that, it's because I use regular paper indstead of photo paper to save on the space for book scrapping, like it's really any of his business what I do with my own paper anyway. BEWARE BEWARE go with lexmark or an hp.

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